Last year I put together a list of games I thought would do well on Metacritic, but not so well in terms of sales. For the most part my predictions were correct, although I did miss badly predicting The Last of Us wouldn't be a success (a flub you guys still like to remind me of from time to time).

But hey, I'm brave, so let's try this again! Here's seven likely to be good games I think will faceplant at retail this year...

Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2 was on last year's list, but the game got delayed until 2014, so it gets a spot this year as well! My Bayonetta 2 skepticism has only worsened over the past year -- the Wii U hasn't taken off, and with The Wonderful 101 Nintendo clearly demonstrated they're either unable or unwilling to properly market a game not featuring their own characters. If Nintendo can't get their head around selling colorful cartoon superheroes, what hope is there that they're going to know how to promote Kamiya's most fetish-tastic creation?

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Sadly the Castlevania name just doesn't mean much in 2014. The original Lords of Shadow was a success by Castlevania standards, but it still only sold around 1.5 million copies, and it feels like it's been eons since that game came out. What cachet the Lords of Shadow name might have once had has dried up, and what's worse, it sounds like the makers of Lords of Shadow 2 are making their new game, well, much more Castlevania-ey. More exploration, more backtracking, more puzzles. That's great news for the few Castlevania fans that still exist, but it's going to turn off mainstream audiences looking for another straightforward action game like the first Lords of Shadow.

The Sims 4

2013 was the year EA and Maxis f--ked up SimCity, and I think 2014 will be the year they f--k up The Sims.

The Sims 4 just feels completely out-of-step with the casual audience it's targeting -- it's not on Facebook or smartphones, it's not free-to-play, it doesn't even have any sort of online features. It's just a straight up, single-player, $60 boxed game. Of course after the debacle that was SimCity, some might applaud this back-to-basics approach, but there's such a thing as being too old-school. It doesn't help that EA and Maxis don't seem to have any great new ideas for this go-around -- so far all they've revealed about The Sims 4 is that it will feature a "greater focus on emotions". I just don't see this new Sims making any sort of impact with its traditional casual audience in 2014.

Broken Age

Don't get me wrong, I think Broken Age's backers will be pretty pleased by what they get. That said, after all the industry-changing, Kickstarter-fuelled hype, I don't think very many people will end up playing Broken Age. This all started with Tim Schafer asking for a few thousand dollars to make a niche game, then some very impassioned fans made the game bigger, and Tim made it bigger yet again with his overspending, but in the end it's still going to be a niche game.

The Elder Scrolls Online

The Evil Within

People keep screaming at Capcom to make another old-school style Resident Evil game, and it looks like Shinji Mikami is doing just that with The Evil Within. Unfortunately there's a reason Capcom refuses to revisit the early years of Resident Evil -- people simply don't buy games like that anymore. People don't want survival horror anymore. They don't want tightly structured games full of locked doors these days, they want open worlds and roller coasters. The Evil Within is my most anticipated game of 2014 and I think it might sells a few next-gen consoles, but I don't think The Evil Within is going to revitalize the survival horror genre the way people are hoping it will.

Alien: Isolation

I'm absolutely on board for Alien: Isolation -- having to face off against a single relentless xenomorph with limited resources is what I've always wanted from an Alien game. Is it what the general public wants though? Most people prefer Aliens to Alien and there's no way your average gamer is going to tolerate a game where there's only a single alien to blast. Aside from all that, Aliens: Colonial Marines has poisoned the Aliens well but good -- Sega probably should have let things rest a while before trying again.

So those are my picks. What about you folks? Which games are going to fail to connect in 2014 in your opinion?

Well, Dead Space 3 wasn’t crap, and 5 million people bought RE6, so I don’t think “everyone” wants what you think they want; but I do agree that there’s still a market for survival horror. It seems like publishers just decided to move away from survival horror games and basically stopped making them, maybe just because a few poorly-made ones sold poorly and gave them the idea that the genre was dying. Moderate successes like Outlast and Amnesia show the audience is there, and a game like Evil Within, with Mikami’s cachet and some big money behind it, could make a much bigger splash. Assuming the budget isn’t bloated, Capcom/Eidos-style, I think that game will succeed. Same goes for Alien: Isolation, actually.

My nomination goes to whatever CoD game comes out this fall. Sure, by any normal standard it’ll do alright, but the last one showed cracks in being able to retain their fan base. It’ll either be this one or the next one that heralds a major revamp in the formula.

I hope the next CoD tanks so fucking hard Craptivision retires their fake Infinity Ward studio and the board is forced to confront the realization that Bobby Kotic chased away any real talent they had when they have to make something new.

The issue with CoD is the alternating studio development. Treyarch has been the company that has been been producing CoD games that have pushed it relatively beyond what it is while IW has been making shitty samey versions.

Yeah, the kind of people who would root for that back-to-basics approach are probably not The Sims’ audience anyway. Then again, I don’t think The Sims’ audience really hankers for much in the way of innovation, either, so I imagine most of them will stay onboard with the franchise as long as it appears to maintain a level of competence. Won’t set the world on fire or anything, but won’t flop either. I do agree that TESO and Bayonetta 2 are going to fail, and I’m afraid you’re also probably right about Broken Age. Those dummies went so far over budget, despite the likelihood that a majority of the people who would buy the game already did buy it via the Kickstarter. Of course I haven’t seen their early access numbers, and those might prove me wrong completely if I knew them.

If I had to guess at the second biggest disappointment, it’ll be Titanfall. There are some bizarrely expensive experimental games coming out, and I can’t help thinking the one that decides everybody loves CoD multiplayer sooooo much they don’t need a single-player is going to be the one that tanks.

I’m with you on that. Think about it – the console version of that game is going to be useless once Microsoft takes the Xbone offline (much like all the millions of copies of Call of Duty and Battlefield games sold on the 360 once that console goes offline in 2016). And the campaign modes of FPS games having been crap for most of the last gen. Is the message we need to send to the games industry at the beginning of the new one “Nah, fuck it, we don’t need single player anymore”?

It all depends on how well Titanfall actually plays, remember, this game is being made by the original Infinity Ward not that cardboard cutout Activision is propping up.

Experimental games are a tremendously good thing considering the homogenous tendencies of the major publishers. This is the direct effect of Indy successes like Minecraft etc showing the big boys that there is an audience for stuff that’s not another FPS and we should all be rooting for their success.

I dunno — the game reminds me of old N64/PS2 era games like Twisted Metal or Battletanks in it’s, “It’s just a dumb thing where you blow your friends up” approach. I kind of think that kind of game is due a comeback.

And those games can still be played. Twisted Metal is almost 20 years old, but you can still play that game today just as well as you could in 1995 when it came out, and you can probably say the same 10, 20 years from now. But Titanfall is unplayable in 10 years or so when Microsoft comes out with a new console and takes the Xbone offline. Literally unplayable, because you can’t connect to the online service that makes the online multiplayer the game is built on possible. FUCK. THAT.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that won’t matter. It’s a multiplayer-only game, so if you have a spotty Internet connection or don’t have one, you’re automatically ruled out. Secondly, if you do, you have to like multiplayer. Thirdly, you have to work with a team to get through the campaign, and it’s hard enough doing a single-player campaign when you have pesky distractions like a job and a significant other.

So the main audience for this game is people with an Xbox product or a gaming PC with an Internet connection who are interested in multiplayer largely under the age of 22. That’s an overly narrow demographic.

I feel like that would be sad, just because Titanfall looks so fun, but also kind of a bad example of the state of gaming. I, in my opinion at least, feel that every time I play a Halo game or something of that nature, that everything has been put into the multiplayer and the single player is just added to to excuse it as a “full game” or something like that.

So far Broken Age is pretty great, but I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t sell much past the people that have already backed the game. The game itself looks like it won’t disappoint though based on what I’ve played of it so far.

I think Bayonetta 2 would not be a dissapointment in terms of gaming, but in terms of “Oh boy, if this arrived A YEAR AGO when the WiiU had still hope…” No, Nintendo is not going to die or anything. But that console is already stuck in the lowest tier, worse than the Gamecube ever was.

Now, would anyone care to elaborate what happened regarding Nintendo and the 101?

The new Smash game, for pretty much the same reasons as Bayonetta 2. The 3DS version might do well, but I can’t really see that for the console version. Are people really going to buy the WiiU just for that game, especially when they can just pick it up on the 3DS anyway?

Yeah, doing it for the 3DS too was a real mistake. It kind of made sense back when the announced the game, because the 3DS still hadn’t found it’s feet, but it absolutely doesn’t need it now and the Wii U desperately needs exclusives.

I have a few buddies that are gonna buy a Wii U specifically for Smash Bros. They probably don’t even know that it’s coming out on 3DS, but would still just rather have it on a console anyhow. I personally bought my Wii U for the same things most people buy a Nintendo console for: Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart and Smash Bros.

From the little bit of Broken Age I’ve played so far, it’s pretty good, not to mention insanely gorgeous. Can’t argue that it probably won’t sell that well.

I’m cautiously optimistic about Lords of Shadow 2. I’m very much on board with the direction they seem to be going (a more Zelda-like approach). I liked the first game, but hated some aspects of it and am worried they will carry over to the sequel (which is actually the 3rd part of the trilogy). Namely, I hated the lack of camera control. I should not have to play Shitty Camera Angle: The Video Game in 2014 (or 2010 for that matter). This was particularly bad in a few mini-boss fights where the camera shifted wildly while you were running around the arena making it more difficult to line up power attacks than it should have been. The other thing I hated about the first game was the QTEs. They all suck, but the mash the button as fast as you can variety are the worst (seriously, how does making me develop a blister enhance my gaming experience?). If Mercury Steam can ditch the QTEs and let me rotate the camera myself whenever I want (seriously, we have a second thumbstick on gamepads for a reason), then that will make me very happy.

Alien Isolation could be awesome. If they go with a weaponless Penumbra/Amnesia type approach then it could truly become the Alien game I’ve always wanted. My expectation level is basically nil, though, as the franchise has burned me too many times in the past (though there have been some good games too).

As far as Capcom making a Resident Evil game old school style, they already did. It’s called Resident Evil Revelations and it’s pretty fucking great.

I signed up to be a beta tester Elder Scrolls Online. They had a test last weekend, and I was mailed an access code that didn’t work. I got onto their support chat to tell them that and was told, “Sorry, I can’t help you. You’ll have to contact our email support.”

Wrote an email and waited 24 hours for a response that basically said: “To download ESO, log in to your account and enter your access code! This support case is closed.”

So I got back onto chat to say, “What the hell is wrong with you? You gave me no advice and you closed the support case before I could even respond.” Once again, I was told, “Sorry, only our email support can help you.”

Another day and a half passed before I get an email with a new code. At that point the beta had closed, so I’m not really sure what the point was.

If they’re having these sorts of issues a few months before release, I can’t fathom how many problems the initial release is going to have. To really make it hard to digest, their support team had clearly been given cutesy instructions about how to talk to customers using as many Elder Scrolls references as possible, so I had to read shit like, “I’ll just pass this along to the High Elves!” or “Anything else I can do for you? Blessing of Akatosh, perhaps?”

The Evil Within is one of the games I’m most looking forward to this year! Some other games I’m wanting are Dead Space 4 (Loved 1,2 & 3), Quake 5 (really wanting a Quake 5 with the Strogg and Kane), Mass Effect 4, Witcher 3, Half Life 3, WoW:WoD, and Mortal Kombat 10!